


When you look at the ocean

by keysburg



Series: Agent Carter S2 [7]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beaches, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Missing Scene, Tequila, Unbeta'd, Unrequited Love, don't mind me i just enjoy suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6126895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysburg/pseuds/keysburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene that takes place between The Atomic Job and Life of the Party:</p><p>AKA why Daniel looks so awful in the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you look at the ocean

When Violet asked him to leave, Daniel headed home with a heavy heart. It hadn’t seemed to matter that he really did love her, and that they’d be happy together. He hadn’t told her about Peggy. Violet had told him about her childhood sweetheart months ago. He had been a young man who enlisted underage and whose body now lay somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific. At the time, he thought his story didn’t compare. Liking someone and them not returning your feelings was not the same as losing someone, since you can’t lose what you never had. Daniel hadn’t expected the depths of his feelings to matter when nothing had happened. And of course, he never expected it to come up at all. 

At home he went to pour himself a drink and try to create a little space between him and everything that had happened today. The whiskey was gone though, and so was the gin. He had nothing but a small bottle of tequila Agent Vega had given him as an engagement gift. Daniel went to crack it, and paused. The house around him was still and entirely too quiet.

There was no traffic at this time of night, and no cars parked on the beach. He didn’t often walk on the beach. The sand was extra difficult with a prosthetic and the crutch, and it meant he’d have to oil the prosthetic joints later. It was probably due anyway. Daniel just took his time, moving carefully just to the crest of the dunes before dropping down into the sand.

It was dark enough the water before him was little more than a dark streak between the beach and the horizon of stars. It seemed appropriate somehow that the moon was a bare sliver and the beach a black void in front of him while the lights of LA burned behind him. He was on the edge, with only the sound of the waves for company. 

The tequila was awful. He was going to seriously question Vega’s restaurant recommendations in the future. It burned all the way down, but Daniel kept sipping at it until the stars began to blur. He deserved the pain.

Getting drunk would only be a temporary distraction, but now swaddled in a soft haze he could breathe again. Peggy was going to be okay. Daniel couldn’t even consider what it would be like if she had died--regardless of what that would have meant for him and Violet. He had fewer distractions now; maybe he could keep Peggy out of trouble. Certainly neither of them expected Whitney to dirty her own hands, but an enemy you knew was an enemy you could defeat. Although he would have preferred Peggy didn’t get to know Whitney quite so well. 

Peggy would find out about Violet. There was no question. She knew him too well and would notice when he tried to dodge. That was not a conversation he wanted to have. He’d end up telling her everything. Peggy would be kind; she was always kind to him. That would be the worst part. When he lost his leg, the worst bit had been the sympathy from people back home. It was meant to be a comfort but somehow all the kindness only underscored his loss. It meant he might be as people saw him now. He preferred the taunts of his former coworkers, to be honest. Peggy’s kindness would only weaken him.

That might only be the second worst part. It would be really awful if he had to see her look--or hear her explanation--of how she didn’t feel the same way. He might not be able to face that from her. It was already a truth he had to face every day. He saw it when they started plotting every new course of action and more when she acted on her own plans without him. 

It was coming though, and he’d take it. He probably deserved it and more anyway. Violet was truly broken-hearted and that was on him. Daniel should have just stayed in his lane, focused on work. For a little while there he thought he could have everything; had even believed he deserved it. He wasn’t getting everything. Only Peggy’s pity and what would certainly be a terrible hangover awaited him now. 

When the sun finally broke over the mountains behind him, Daniel got up and drove home.


End file.
